Athletes at all levels experience sports related injuries. From professional athletes to the noon-ball gym rats at the local YMCA, everyone develops aches and pains if they play sports long enough. Most sports injuries lead to pain in one or more parts of the body. In some cases people sustain injuries to the brain.

Unfortunately many people treat sports injuries with pharmaceutical prescriptions that provide more harm than good. In many cases, a sports related injury leads to a lifelong battle with painkiller addiction or the abuse of other substances. Fortunately cannabis can be used instead of other harmful substances with great results.

Below are results from (and links to) scientific studies describing how cannabis can help treat pain and brain injuries:

“Medical cannabis appears to serve as both a complementary method for symptom management and treatment of medication side-effects associated with certain chronic conditions, and as an alternative method for treatment of pain, seizures, and inflammation in this population.” – Bruce Douglas, Brady John P., Foster Elissa, and Shattell Mona (2017)

“By the end of the 21 month observation period, MCP enrollment was associated with 17.27 higher age- and gender-adjusted odds of ceasing opioid prescriptions (CI 1.89 to 157.36, p = 0.012), 5.12 higher odds of reducing daily prescription opioid dosages (CI 1.56 to 16.88, p = 0.007), and a 47 percentage point reduction in daily opioid dosages relative to a mean change of positive 10.4 percentage points in the comparison group (CI -90.68 to -3.59, p = 0.034). The monthly trend in opioid prescriptions over time was negative among MCP patients (-0.64mg IV morphine, CI -1.10 to -0.18, p = 0.008), but not statistically different from zero in the comparison group (0.18mg IV morphine, CI -0.02 to 0.39, p = 0.081). Survey responses indicated improvements in pain reduction, quality of life, social life, activity levels, and concentration, and few side effects from using cannabis one year after enrollment in the MCP (ps<0.001).” – Vigil, Stith, Adams, Reeve (2017)

“Among study participants, medical cannabis use was associated with a 64% decrease in opioid use (n = 118), decreased number and side effects of medications, and an improved quality of life (45%). This study suggests that many CP patients are essentially substituting medical cannabis for opioids and other medications for CP treatment, and finding the benefit and side effect profile of cannabis to be greater than these other classes of medications.” – Boehnke KF, Litinas E, Clauw DJ. (2016)

“Sixty seven percent of patients stopped using opioid medications after using medical cannabis. In addition, 29 percent of patients reported a decrease in the number of opioid medications after starting medical cannabis.” – Aclara Research (2017)

“All prescriptions for scheduled medications must be reported to the New Mexico Prescription Monitoring Program with opiates and benzodiazepines being the two most common. Based on these prescription records, patients enrolled in the medical cannabis program reduced the monthly average number of prescriptions, types of prescriptions (drug classes), number of prescribers, and number of related pharmacy visits. 71% of medical cannabis program enrollees either ceased or reduced their use of scheduled prescriptions within 6 months of enrolling.” – Stith, S. S., et al (2017)

“The growing body of research supporting the medical use of cannabis as an adjunct or substitute for opioids creates an evidence-based rationale for governments, health care providers, and academic researchers to consider the implementation and assessment of cannabis-based interventions in the opioid crisis.” – Philippe Lucas (2017)

BRAIN INJURIES

“Marijuana use is estimated to reduce premature deaths from diabetes mellitus, cancer, and traumatic brain injury by 989 to 2,511 deaths for each 1% of the population using Cannabis. The analysis predicts an estimated 23,500 to 47,500 deaths prevented annually if medical marijuana were legal nationwide.” – Indiana University South Bend (2017)

“Results suggest that an ultralow dose of THC that lacks any psychotrophic activity protects the brain from neuroinflammation-induced cognitive damage and might be used as an effective drug for the treatment of neuroinflammatory conditions, including neurodegenerative diseases” – Fishbein-Kaminietsky, M., Gafni, M. and Sarne, Y. (2014)